Thomson

It’s a heck of a way to run a pre-election campaign. On the eve of an expected election, politicians usually spend their time playing up good news, downplaying the bad, shaking hands and kissing babies.

Taste Alberta: Beef from the farm to your plate (with recipes)

Jeff Senger is co-owner of Sangudo Custom Meats, a small operation west of Edmonton.

Photograph by: Kevin Kossowan

EDMONTON - It only happens in the movies, doesn’t it? Young professional with a great income gives up the big city, with its commute and urban stresses, for a quaint, country life of raising chickens and churning butter. Except that’s the true life story of 35-year-old Jeff Senger.

With his wife Heather (a teacher) and their four daughters (all under nine), Jeff left a lucrative accounting career and the gleaming towers of Calgary for the tiny hamlet of Sangudo, Alberta, population 325.

Like many small rural communities across Canada, Sangudo — located about an hour west of Edmonton — was quietly shrinking. An aging population and out-migration of the young forced the community to strategize on ways to save the town from extinction.

They formed a community-owned investment co-operative — a group of nearby residents each investing small amounts — and helped Jeff and Kevin Meier, 39, buy the town’s dying abattoir.

Two and a half years on, Sangudo Custom Meats employs six full-time positions, operating one kill day per week, and delivering custom cuts of naturally raised and organic meat to some of Edmonton’s best restaurants, and reviving Sangudo one steak at a time.

And business is growing. Ever since the recall of E. coli tainted beef from Alberta’s XL Foods slaughterhouse in September 2012 — the largest meat recall in Canadian history — Sangudo Custom Meats has been “flat-out busy for 18 weeks, and booked ahead two months,” says Jeff. Sales are up at all the small plants he knows.

The recall also raised serious questions about the wisdom of processing 4,000 cows per day at XL, or roughly 3,000 steaks per minute. “The scale is their weakness,” says Jeff. Despite all “the best people, the best technologies and the best intentions, that scale means the number of human minutes per unit of food is so minimal.”

In contrast, Jeff points out, “There are three of us working a kill day, processing 15 cows with one provincial inspector. We have so many eyes and ears on each square inch of that carcass.”

And then there are the relationships. “I shake the farmer’s hand when he drops off his live cow, and I shake his hand when he comes to pick up his steak,” says Jeff. “There is a trust … and responsibility at our small level because if he gets sick off the steak, I’ll hear about it and lose my business.”

Such small-scale processing helps local farmers and the beef is more nutritious, Jeff says.

“Ninety-nine per cent of animals (we process) are grown on farms by local area residents that would generally have no option but to sell them into an auction situation,” says Jeff, “where they become accreted at a confined finishing feed lot, and go into the industrial food chain.”

But now farms around Sangudo can let their animals naturally graze on pasture.

“They live with the animals and finish the animals on a small scale in their backyards,” says Jeff. “We know what it was fed, when it was vaccinated and with what, even the condition of the pasture it came off.”

Most importantly, chefs agree it tastes better.

“The quality of Jeff’s product is untouchable,” raves Brayden Kozak, head chef at the trendy, 41-seat Three Boars Eatery in Edmonton. “He’s very selective with the producers he’s drawing from. Quality is very important to him, and in turn we get that.”

The 10-month-old eatery, with its industrial farmhouse vibe and cool cocktails, is the latest to join a growing movement of restaurants, chefs and legions of their customers hungry for menus crafted from sustainable food only small, local Alberta suppliers like Jeff can deliver.

“His pet name is Meat Santa,” jokes Kozak, “because we don’t know what we are getting until he walks in.” That’s another side-effect of using a supplier who only has a few cows per week to sell. There are only so many filet mignons to be had.

“What about the skirt steaks, the tongue, and liver?” asks Kozak. “It was a living, breathing creature, and throwing those parts in the garbage doesn’t seem right.”

Indeed, this nose-to-tail ethos helps revitalize rural economies, where small Alberta farmers can get fair price for ethically raising and humanely processing the whole animal, not just its tenderloins.

Kozak rises to his own challenge with a delicious Banh Mi sandwich. It’s a Vietnamese-style sub made with grilled skirt steak — an inexpensive but flavourful cut from the abdominal plate — and topped with pickled vegetables, spicy mayo, sweet-salty hoisin sauce and savoury lamb liver paté, all tucked in a French baguette.

You can get your hands on Sangudo beef at CareIt Urban Deli (two locations in Edmonton). They also deliver to Calgary — a buyer’s club of sorts. Contact them for drop-off dates and locations or buy directly from Jeff (780-785-3353) in Sangudo. He'll even give you a tour of the abattoir, if you like. It won’t be a sleek movie set, but you might get star struck with the real life celebrities of Sangudo.

Tina Faiz is a freelance journalist. She has a regular food column on CBC Radio’s Alberta at Noon. Follow her on Twitter

Three Boars Eatery Banh Mi

Makes 3 sandwiches

Lamb Liver Paté

1 lb. (500 g) fresh lamb liver, cut into 2-inch cubes

4 oz. (100 g) bacon

1/2 cup (125 mL) diced onion

1 tablespoon (15 mL) tomato paste

1/2 oz. cognac (15 mL)

Salt to taste

Render the bacon over medium heat. Just before it’s crispy, add the onion and sweat until translucent. Increase the pan temperature and add the lamb liver, stirring every 30 seconds until all sides of the liver are cooked, but leaving the liver medium rare.

Add tomato paste and cognac and stir until the alcohol has been cooked off, and the liver is coated evenly. Season and transfer to a cookie sheet, and place in the fridge until cool. Once cool, purée the liver in a food processor until smooth and pass through a fine mesh strainer to remove any missed bits. Season with salt.

Pickled Carrots and Daikon

2 medium carrots, julienned

1 daikon radish, julienned

1/2 cup (125 mL) soy sauce

1/2 cup (125 mL) rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons (25 mL) fish sauce

1/4 cup (60 mL) brown sugar

Dissolve the brown sugar into the wet ingredients. Submerge the carrots and daikon in the brine for at least a couple of hours, ideally 12.

Sriracha Mayonnaise

2 eggs yolks

2 tablespoons (25 mL) Sriracha hot sauce

2 teaspoons (10 mL) Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon (5 mL) fish sauce

2 tablespoons (25 mL) lime juice

1 cup (250 mL) canola oil

Salt

In a food processor, combine all the ingredients except oil and salt. Once blended, slowly add the oil until completely emulsified. Season well with salt.

To assemble:

10 oz. (300 g) beef skirt steak

1 french baguette

Hoisin sauce (a salty-sweet Chinese sauce)

Cilantro

Season skirt steak with salt and pepper. Grill or sauté until medium rare, and set aside to rest.

Finish the baguette with a good layer of liver paté, hoisin, mayonnaise and pickled vegetables, to taste. Thinly slice the steak and distribute evenly. Garnish with cilantro and cut the baguette into three equal pieces.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.